Re: Re: [ga] Proposal for mailing list policy

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2000 at 02:04:27AM -0500, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:

> [excuse the telegraphic style - I am away from home on a slow link and
> editing is hard.]

The telegraphic style is a pleasant change :-)

> On the subject of an archive:
> 
> Take me as an example.  I would probably read the filtered list routinely.
> But if someone tells me that there is censorship going on, I would look at
> the archive of the unfiltered list.  It is unreasonable to expect me to
> archive all that traffic just in case of need.  It is also not productive
> to make me rely on a private archive that might be incomplete or
> manipulated.  I need the official one to make a judgment.

Nope.  You don't need such an archive to make a judgement.  If someone
tells you that censorship is going on, you can join the unfiltered list,
and post a message asking for people to resend any material they think
is being censored.  Slightly less convenient, but just as effective at
detecting "censorship". 

In FACT, of course, this whole discussion is silly.  There is no way
that meaningful ideas germane to the purpose of the GA could possibly be
"censored".  The whole "free speech" debate is a theoretical, abstract
hobgoblin that has no realistic basis.  A fundamental requirement for
censorship to be effective is that there be restricted communication
channels.  But we have an embarassing riches of communication channels
-- people can post their censored ideas to your "icannwatch" web site,
the press will get excited, there are 40 other mailing lists where people
can bitch etc etc.  In this environment, for the purposes of the GA, NO 
CENSORSHIP IS POSSIBLE.

You, Karl, Baptista, and other free speech dogmatists are wasting our
time with abstract concerns that have no basis whatsoever in reality. 

Moreover, the potential effectiveness of the GA for the purpose it was
intended is being seriously impacted by this myopic focus on 
distant theoretical concerns.  

On Filters:

In THEORY everybody could learn to use filters, and control with fine
granularity what they see.  In PRACTICE, the climate of the list is 
such that important players don't participate, and use other channels 
to communicate with ICANN.  In THEORY everyone could learn Kung Fu and 
defend themselves, in PRACTICE most people depend on the police.

Finally, individual filters don't work on an archive.  This means that 
use the archive as a practical tool is seriously hampered.

> And I need it
> online before the people who control it edit it to remove what I want to
> see (if they are dumb enough to do political censorship, they would be
> capable of editing the master list if I had to give them notice of my
> interest by asking to see it; or they might not give it to me.  And why
> should I have to give them a reason for why I want to see it?  What
> point does that serve?). Thus, a secret archived list is not a good
> idea.  Anyway, what exactly is the objection to having the list archived
> and public?  What was the Canadians' mysterious reason?  What harm can it
> do?

It's a waste of time and resources.  The list should explicitly not be
archived. 

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain